Category Archives: Coach

A few people grow up knowing what they will become. But not Yanni Hufnagel, the assistant men’s basketball coach at The University of Nevada is practically living out his dream.

A University coach’s job is equivalent to being a recruiter, and Yanni Hufnagel understands this more than anyone else.He admits that his goal is to sign the high school students who are targeting the NBA.

To do this he has to get in touch with high school kids, hang out with them in their gyms during their games, understand their lingo and socialize with their coaches. To top it all you have to be a great salesman who can market your college to the kids. Some Ivy League schools offer scholarships, but not Harvard and this makes it even harder to recruit students. The 30-year-old coach practically wet his suit with sweat during his interview at Harvard, but he still got the job.

Yaani started reading coaching books when he was still a kid and he would even recreate games where he would play both the coach and commentator. So he knew he would either be a commentator or a basketball coach.In July,Yanni Hufnagel will coach Maccabi USA at the Maccabiah Games.This is the first time that he will get to practice his basketball head coach skills.

Yanni Hufnagel’s history career

The basketball coach started his career as a manager during his first year in Cornell. He then made it to the New Jersey Nets.Immediately he graduated from Cornell, he made it to Oklahoma as a graduate assistant.In 2009, the hardworking coach moved to Harvard where he got the job as a volunteer assistant coach.

During his tenure here he was voted by a CBS Sports poll as being the most likely to succeed.Yanni Hufnagel has also worked with Vanderbilt Commodores as an assistant coach. He has also worked at the University of California at Berkeley.Currently, he is the assistant coach of Wolf Pack at The University of Nevada.